According to the Telegraph, Stevenson wrote: "Can someone please just have Andrew Critchlow taken out and shot? Thx.”

Critchlow said he was targeted with hundreds of more threatening Twitter messages and reported the matter to the police only after efforts to persuade Stevenson to remove the message were ignored.

Twitter has suspended Stevenson’s account.

Critchlow told the Telegraph: “I have reported from some of the most dangerous places in the world including Baghdad and Basra, yet this is the first time in my journalistic career that I have genuinely been in fear over something I have written.

“I just hope some cycling campaigner doesn't decide to hit me over the head with a metal bar in the next few days.

“That a fellow journalist should threaten the life of another reporter in such away is staggering.”